TV Commercials for Accident Victim Attorneys

In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of tv commercials for accident victim attorneys. Depending on the part of the country and the time of day, anywhere from two to twenty of these commercials per hour may be shown, one after the other in some cases.

All these commercials are all pretty much the same. They usually feature an attorney for whom the commercial is for, a car accident victim, and an opposing attorney representing the insurance company. Although these commercials are entertaining, and somewhat informative, do they really depict real life events accurately?

The attorney is always a very serious, commanding, dominating man, who states why he should be called immediately after your car accident occurs. He say that will take care of everything. He wants us to believe that his client was awarded a large amount of money because he is such an incredible attorney. The victim could not have done it without him. However, he never discloses what he charges for these services.

The opposing attorney, representing the insurance company, is usually pretty amusing. He is usually portrayed as the bad guy trying to give little or no money away and sometimes hanging up the phone on the victim. Then when he hears that the victim has hired the high powered attorney, he is frightened and agrees to settle for a large amount.

The accident victim usually gives a brief account of the accident, stating that he or she was unable to work after the accident for a period of time. Then, he or she proceeds to tell how hundreds of thousands of dollars were awarded because of the attorney. He or she sometimes even advises us to do the same if we are ever in a similar accident. Incredibly, the victim usually looks pretty good considering they were supposedly disabled by the accident. This would almost lead you to believe that it was worth it for the victim to be in the accident.

Is all this for real? Do accident victims really get awarded six figure amounts of money? Does the victim's attorney really have that much power? Is the opposing attorney really that frightened of the victim's attorney? Do people really take these commercials seriously?

However, the real question is: Are there people who are driving around in the hopes that another driver will hit them, so that they can make the big money too?